If you Google “entrepreneur” you get a lot of mindless cliches like “Think Big!”

For me, being an “entrepreneur” doesn’t mean starting the next “Facebook”. Or even starting any business at all.

It means finding the challenges you have in your life, and determining creative ways to overcome those challenges…

I believe that creating multiple income streams is important for everyone. However, in this post I focus mostly on the issues that come up when you first start an actual company.

These rules also apply if you are taking an entrepreneurial stance within a much larger company (which all employees should do).

Just as good to be an “entreployee” as an “entrepreneur”. Either one will help you survive this world of increased economic uncertainty.

For me, I’ve started several businesses.

Maybe 17 have failed out of 20. I fail quickly. I fail frequently. Entrepreneurship is a sentence of failures punctuated by brief success.

I’m invested in about 28 private companies. I’ve advised probably another 50 private companies. I’m on the board of several private companies and one public company. The companies ranging from $0 in revenues to a billion in revenues.

Along the way I’ve compiled a list of rules that have helped me deal with every aspect of being an entrepreneur in business and some in life.

Please read more here: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/04...-entrepreneur/